


A Whole New World

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:05:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2671442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Enjolras is killed during a protest, Grantaire gets drunk and wakes up in an alternate universe where Enjolras is still alive, but R never existed.</p><p>It says major character death but he's literally back in the next chapter so</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fic I have written that is actually an interesting enough idea to post anywhere?
> 
> tw: alcohol, death, *brief* discussion of suicide, implication of past self harm.

Grantaire anxiously tapped his foot on the ugly blue carpet of the church basement’s floor. He was generally impatient and bored at these silly meetings, but today he had a reason. The room swelled suddenly with twenty monotone voices saying, “Hi Marie.” Grantaire mumbled echoing them halfheartedly.  
He was doodling in his notebook trying to keep his mind occupied. He ended up drawing Marie (who’s words he was still not listening to), a thin woman in her thirties with a haircut that screamed “mom.”  
The drawing was shit. Everything was shit. He shut his notebook angrily, and it must have been louder than he thought, because when he looked up forty eyes were trained on him.  
“Um hi.” 

“Would you like to add something related to what Marie was saying?” asked the group leader, who’s name Grantaire couldn’t remember if there was a gun to his head.  
“I uh... Honestly I wasn’t paying attention. I have a lot on my mind.” He ran a hand through his thick hair awkwardly.  
“You know I believe you have been coming here for three months, and that is the first time you have said anything. I don’t even know your name.”  
His awkward and uncomfortable tone snapped back into a sarcastic and almost mean one. “Do you want me to do the whole ‘Hi I’m Grantaire and I’m an alcoholic’ thing?” A couple confused “Hi Grantaire”s came from around the room.  
“Well now you know my name.” He opened his notebook back up, and went back to doodling (this time it was a raccoon that looked suspiciously like Enjolras after a late night).  
“You know Grantaire,this is a good place to get what’s on your mind, well, off your mind,” the leader guy said.  
Grantaire sighed. “Okay. My boyfriend is at a political protest- the kind that always turn ugly- and I am here not listening because it makes him happy.”  
“You wish you were with him?”  
“No shit.” Before he could return to his closed book state, he blurted out more. “I give him a hard time but I want him to be safe. He’s always doing the same for me. Hell, if he hadn’t made me come to these damn meetings I’d probably be passed out on a bench or something right now. I don’t think I ever tell him how much I appreciate all the crap I complain about.” 

When the meeting ended, Grantaire found himself bumming a rare cigarette from a sympathetic attendee. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to turn the ringer back on, and saw that he had a missed call from Courfeyrac. Actually, he had five. He could listen to the messages, but it was easier to just call back.

Before the first ring was finished he heard a breathless “Oh thank god,” from the other line.  
Panic was rising inside him. Courfeyrac sounded bad. “Courf? Is something wrong?”  
“You should... you need to meet us at the Musain in twenty minutes.”  
“What happened? Tell me now.”  
“I can’t do this on the phone R you don’t deserve that.”  
“Is Enjolras okay?” his voice was trembling and quiet.  
He heard Courf take a shaky breath. “No. He’s... he’s dead Grantaire.” 

He hadn’t realized how much his alcohol tolerance had changed in three months until it was far too late. Not that he would have really cared anyway. He had stayed and listened to his friends talk about the protest for as long as he could stand before he broke and ran. He ran to some shitty dive bar across from an even shittier holiday inn. He had been to the bar only once before when he and Enjolras had an argument almost a year ago.  
Generally he preferred wine or cocktails over hard liquor, but tonight he just wanted to get smashed. It only took him a few shots of vodka to get buzzed, and he had far, far more than that. 

He stumbled out into the wet summer night and pulled his thin green hoodie tighter around himself. He couldn’t go home, he was afraid of what he would do to himself. Instead he just wandering aimlessly around the city and getting hopelessly lost. He somehow ended up on an unfamiliar bridge, overlooking the river. The streetlights reflected in the water looked like stars. He swung his legs over the barrier so they dangled off the edge. He idly wondered how far down it was. It was definitely a deadly distance.  
He crossed the thought of jumping from his mind before it even finished forming. If there was an afterlife (and with his luck there probably was) he didn’t need to spend eternity with Enjolras’ disappointment in knowing he killed himself. 

He sighed. He needed to find somewhere to sleep, and luckily Combeferre and Courfeyrac had a very good couch for crashing. He’d have to figure out where he was first. He grabbed onto the wet railing with one hand as he prepared to climb back over to safety. As he lifted his leg over the barrier, his footing slipped, and he plummeted down off the bridge into the river.

Grantaire blearily opened his eyes, and groaned as sunlight hit them through the leaves of a tree. Whatever he was lying on was very uncomfortable. He slowly sat up, his head spinning. A park bench. He laughed bitterly. “Fucking called it,” he muttered under his breath. What the hell had happened the night before? He remembered leaving the bar and wandering the city, but after that it was a blur. At least he recognized the park, it was only a few blocks from the apartment. Home. He needed to go home now, take a shower and eat something.  
The three block walk to the little apartment building was unpleasant. His hoodie was still wet, his head was pounding, and his body ached all over. And of course, he realized as he stood in the hallway on the second floor in front of his own door, his keys were missing. Fantastic.

He took the elevator back down to the ground level and walked around the building to the fire escape. Enjolras has a bad habit of leaving the window open, and Grantaire had been a little preoccupied the day before. Chances were the window would still be open. He reached the second floor and the right window, which was in fact, open. He smiled to himself as he remember the million times he had gotten into the apartment this way, each time Enje threatening to clock him over the head with a baseball bat thinking he was a burglar.

He stepped through the window into what was clearly the wrong apartment. It was clean and bare as though whoever lived there hadn’t bothered to unpack. But the most important difference was the missing mural Grantaire had painted of all their friends because he got sick of the big blank wall staring him in the face. The room smelled like lavender and omelets. Grantaire hated omelets. They made him think of the time they let Bousset bring food to a meeting and everyone had gotten food poisoning.  
He was too busy taking in the weirdly similar but totally different room to notice that the omelette chef was still there. Unfortunately, the omelette chef was far more observant.

WHACK. A large wooden spatula made contact with Grantaire’s face. “Get. Out. Of. My. House.” The speaker punctuated each word with another smack.  
“Stop it! I’m not trying steal from you I just thought this was...” His sentence trailed off as he uncovered his face and stared into the furious eyes of his dead boyfriend.  
“I will call the cops if you don’t leave,” Enjolras said.  
“No you won’t, Enje, you hate cops...” his voice was half in a whisper.  
Enjolras lowered the spatula cautiously. “Do I know you?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is super short but also 200% less angsty

Enjolras did not expect to spend his Thursday morning comforting a person who just broke into his house with tea.  
“You... you were dead. Courf told me...”  
“You know Courfeyrac?” this suddenly made marginally more sense. Courf had weird friends outside les amis, and that would sort of explain how the stranger knew his name.  
“Yes! I know everyone! I know you! This is all wrong. This place is wrong.”  
“Okay calm down. Just...tell me how you got here maybe. Tell me everything you can remember about last night.” He hoped this was the right thing to ask, it always seemed like what they asked on TV at least.  
“I was... after Courfeyrac called me -“  
“And told you I was dead?”  
“Yeah... after that we were all at the Musain, and then I went to some crap bar, and then... oh my god.”  
Grantaire was frozen, staring blankly at the wall. Just as Enjolras was about to wave a hand in front of his face, he spoke.  
“I fell off the bridge. I must be dead too.” his voice was hoarse, and he sounded like he was about to cry. “So this is either your heaven or my hell.” He buried his face in his hands.  
Enjolras awkwardly reached over to place a hand on his back but his phone rang. 

He winced as bootylicious by Destiny’s Child rang through the apartment. It was Combeferre.  
“Hey babe, this isn’t exactly a great time.”  
“What kind of not great time?”  
“I have one of Courfeyrac’s friends who-“ he looked over to Grantaire who was now listening to him intently. He walked away and switched to a harsh whisper, “-frankly reeks of alcohol, sitting on my couch sobbing about how we’re both dead.”  
Combeferre whistled.  
“Oh yeah, did I mention that he snuck in through my window?”  
“Well to be fair, you do forget to close it at least eighty percent of the time.”  
“”Ferre I love you, but that is not what I need right now.”  
“Well I was calling to invite you to breakfast and save you from your cooking repertoire of eggs, eggs, toast, or eggs. Does mysterious vodka scented Courf friend want to come too?”  
He pursed his lips and looked towards the melancholy man on his couch. He felt bad for the guy. “I’ll ask. And hey! I can cook more than eggs!”  
“I included toast on the list, and what were you going to make then?”  
He sighed. “An omelette. Point taken.”  
Combeferre chuckled. “Meet me at the moderately nice pancake place in half an hour, with or without MVSCF.”  
“What?”  
“Mysterious Vodka Scented Courf Friend. MVSCF.”  
“He said his name is Grantaire.”

“Well whatever his name is, he probably needs pancakes.”

 

Enjolras refused to go anywhere until Grantaire had taken a shower and brushed his teeth. His own clothes were in the wash, so Enjolras gave him some of the clothes Combeferre had left there ages ago (his clothes would be at least three sizes too small for the taller man). He looked beyond uncomfortable in the blue button up shirt and khakis.  
“You clean up nice.”  
Grantaire scowled. “Are you mocking me? I look like I should be handing out bible pamphlets on a college campus.”  
“I think the scruff ruins that look.” Grantaire self consciously rubbed his face. “I’ve been a little busy to shave, okay?”  
Enjolras shrugged. “Whatever. You look fine, and we’re going to be late if you keep complaining.”

Combeferre was already at the pancake place when they got there, but that was to be expected. Enjolras had known ‘Ferre since high school, and had never known him to be late for anything ever. Someone had to balance out his and Courf’s habitual lateness.  
Combeferre was calmly stirring a cup of tea. He looked up and smiled at Enjolras when they sat down. Enjolras, leaned over and kissed Combeferre.  
Grantaire fidgeted with his shirt, rolling his sleeves up just enough so parts of his tattoos peeked out from under the fabric. It was one of the most attractive things Enjolras had ever seen. Judging by Combeferre’s face he agreed.  
“Hi, I’m Combeferre,” he held out his hand to Grantaire.  
“I know.” His voice was defensive. He sighed and took a deep breath. “I mean, I’m Grantaire. Just call me R. It’s nice to... meet you.”  
He stood up, and threw his napkin on the table. “I’m gonna go wash my hands.”  
As Grantaire walked away, Combeferre craned his neck to watch. “My pants are a little tight on him.”  
Enjolras blushed. “I noticed.”  
“I think I’m leaving you for the awkward punk rock kindergarten teacher,” Ferre said absentmindedly.  
“Yeah me too.”


End file.
